Carcer City is the setting of Manhunt, a non-GTA Rockstar game which features mass murderer/vigilante James Earl Cash as its protagonist. Carcer City is a decayed and high-crime city located in close proximity to Liberty City. It is depicted as having a dysfunctional and corrupt police force and large swaths of neglected and abandoned neighborhoods that have become overrun by violent gangs.

Being an extreme caricature of a Rust Belt city, Carcer City appears to have taken inspiration from Camden, NJ; Flint, MI; East St Louis, IL; Gary, IN; and Detroit, MI. It is implied that Carcer City was a booming industrial center in its past before it became crippled by crime and depression.

References are made to Carcer City in the Grand Theft Auto world, and GTA car models are seen in the Manhunt games, confirming that Carcer City exists within the same continuity as GTA, with the events of Manhunt likely being part of the 3D Universe. A news segment from Grand Theft Auto III describes Carcer City as being "nearby" Liberty City.

Contents

Geography

Carcer City is located several miles away from Liberty City, possibly in Liberty State or another state from Midwest or North East Coast. There is a polluted river located in the city that catches on fire, a reference to the Cuyahoga River. The terrain is mostly flat aside from surrounding hills that house the wealthier neighborhoods. Not much else is known or revealed about the environment in Carcer City. Also, Carcer City isn't specified in which part of Liberty State could be, but might be in the northern part of Liberty State due to the existence of the Shoreside Vale's tunnels that leads somewhere in the northern part of Liberty State.

Etymology

"Carcer" likely derives from the Latin word carcere, meaning "prison"; this is the root of terms like "incarcerate" (meaning "to imprison"), and "carceral state", a state modeled on a prison.

"Carcer" is one of the seven figures of Western Geomancy. It is the figurative outline of an enclosure or prison cell, and presumably also derives from the Latin carcere.

"Carcer" (in Latin: Carcere) was also the name of a prison in Rome in the ancient Roman empire.

Residents

James Earl Cash - The protagonist of Manhunt, he is a violent criminal and death row inmate who was given a second chance at life in order to star in a snuff film centered around his brutal slaying of Carcer's gangs. A former resident of San Andreas, he was apprehended for an unknown crime while in Carcer City and held in the deserted Darkwoods Penitentiary under the pretense of being on death row. In reality, he was hand-picked by a powerful snuff movie ring that allowed him to live as long as he took a leading role in one of their films.

Lionel Starkweather (AKA The Director) - A powerful and wealthy snuff porn director and Vinewood reject with many underground financial backers. He profited from Carcer City's decline by completely buying off its police force and government who in turn allowed him to transform the city into a playground for his sadistic movies and projects. Most of Carcer City's gangs appear to be on his payroll.

Gary Schaffer- The corrupt chief of the Carcer City Police Department who was bribed by Starkweather into letting him use multiple locations in the city as the setting of his snuff movies. He was first mentioned in a Grand Theft Auto III news report as being cleared of charges of corruption, an event that occurs after the end of the Manhunt storyline.

Locations

Wapona Hills: A wealthy residential enclave located in the outskirts of the city, it is home to Starkweather's sprawling estate.

Carcer Zoo: A large, abandoned zoo that featured many exotic animals in its past. It became the hunting grounds of the sadistic paramilitary gang, the Wardogs.

Darkwoods Penitentiary: A massive prison complex that featured an asylum for prisoners deemed too insane for the general population. The Penitentiary has become disused and overrun by its former inmates and asylum patients.

Carcer Church: A deserted gothic church located in the East Los Albos district. It is connected to a graveyard and houses the base of operations for the satanic Innocentz gang.

Carcer City Mall: A multiple-story shopping mall that appears to be either abandoned or under construction. It is considered to be turf of the Innocentz.

Denton's City Junkyard: A massive scrapyard located in the industrial district of the city, it was taken over by a white supremacist gang. It features a magnetic crane and compactor along with many warehouses and piles of scrap metal.

Carcer Point Station: A big subway and railway station. There are many freight carriages seen here and a train depot. It is a place where Carcer City Police Department and Carcer City SWAT patrolling here.

Districts

Carcer City references in Grand Theft Auto

In a news segment on Lips 106 (after the song "Bump to the Music" by Fatamarse) Andee reports that "Carcer City 'police chief Gary Schaffer was cleared of corruption charges in a controversial decision by the courts". This suggests that the police chief has been corrupt for two or more years before the events of Manhunt, presumably accepting money from Starkweather. The same news segment mentions Carcer City as being "nearby" to Liberty City.

A radio advertisement for Carcer City makes references to steel mills being closed and "dining in the glow of the Flaming River". Many steel mills in the Midwest closed during the early '90s, including those in Pittsburgh, PA, Philadelphia, PA, Cleveland, Ohio, and Detroit, MI. The "Flaming River" is a clear reference to the "Burning River", a period in the 1970s where the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio was so polluted that it caught fire.

While searching the police database, some of the characters listed are born in Carcer City.

Pedestrians may say "You drive like you're from Carcer City" if Niko Bellic narrowly misses them while driving. If you listen to a group of girls talking they might say stuff like "I'm so moving to Carcer City".

"Liberty City to Carcer City" is a distance the game can indicate in the 'Distance Traveled' statistic. It is a relatively lower level title in the overall statistic, and is listed before "Liberty City to the Capital", suggesting that Carcer City is closer to Liberty City than Washington DC to New York City.

When walking in Little Italy, an Italian mobster is talking on his cell phone and he mentions that his cousin had recently flown in from Carcer City.

In The Ballad of Gay Tony, a topless, blonde haired dancer can be heard saying that he once lived in Carcer City, and that he acted in films for The Director.

While in Middle Park and surrounding areas, you can hear one of the pedestrians say "Oh shit, this is Liberty, not Carcer!" when you're shooting at people.

Miscellaneous

There are a few GTA vehicles seen in Carcer City in Manhunt. The Stallion makes a cameo appearance as a burnt out wreck, and the Virgo appears as a picture in Starkweather's mansion. The large police vans located throughout Manhunt, where the protagonist can pry open the back doors to find supplies, closely resemble the Boxville vans from the GTA III era games. The box trucks with lights beaming during some levels resemble the Yankee from the GTA III era games. Hollowed-out, roofless, rusted shells of cars resembling the GTA III Idaho can be found widely around the junkyard in Manhunt, as well as being seen throughout the GTA III era.